


open your eyes and see

by voodoochild



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: F/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent/Child Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:39:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-"Peg of Old", Jimmy tries and fails to deal with the aftermath of the Nucky situation. Gillian both does and does not help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	open your eyes and see

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Em's "Scandalize a Conservative!" Multifandom Comment Porn-a-thon, for the prompt "Jimmy/Gillian, the last line to cross".

They are never, ever sober. That is the rule.

There is always an excuse, no matter how flimsy or weak, always a justification they can use. Too much whiskey - or wine, or bourbon, or beer. It was a celebration - or mourning, or a mistake, or obliteration. They don't mean what they do or say when they're drunk.

Because when they're drunk, there's nothing he wants to hear (and nothing she wants to say) more than _it's all right, baby_. When they're drunk, they could be anyone to each other, and if he sometimes pretends to see dark curls instead of red, well - so does she. Alcohol blurs her, paints her hazy in sharp nails, soft voice, long legs, pink-tipped breasts. She can be everything he needs, and nothing he doesn't. Nothing else matters.

It doesn't mean that it doesn't burn them with wanting when they aren't enough for each other. His hands clench and eyes close against the image of her stumbling in, smelling of cigarettes and Luciano's cologne. He sees her lips thin and eyes narrow when he strokes his wife's hair, and she pretends she doesn't hear the bed squeak at night. In apology, she will come to him after bathing, skin soft and hair dripping onto the floor, and stroke his hair. In apology, he will sit her at the table he and his partners make business decisions at, and he will kiss her in front of God and men alike.

The night he orders Nucky Thompson killed, he wants to drown himself in the nearest distillery, but he can't. His stomach turns at the idea of alcohol - which is, of course, what started this war in the first place - and he goes to his father's house to find his mother. His boots ring out hollow on the marble floors, and when he sees her at the top of the stairs, he knows in his heart what he came here for.

(Clarity. The knowledge of who and what he wanted. A pure, all-consuming need that he feels for no one and nothing but her.)

He doesn't know how long he was standing there, looking at her - she never minds being looked at - but her hands are cupping his face and his fingers are curling in the folds of her dress.

"Baby, what's wrong?" she asks, and he laughs, because what the fuck isn't wrong? "What happened?"

He slides to the floor, sitting on the steps and leaning his head against the bannister.

"Nucky's alive. Al's guy took the shot, but he telegraphed it and Nuck got hit in the hand. There was a fed there, too."

She doesn't offer platitudes, not that she ever would, but tilts his face up toward her. "We'll fix it, you hear me? Not tonight, we can't do anything else now. But we will fix this situation."

It must feel good to be so certain of everything. He's never been able to do that, always worried and planned and never knew what would happen. When he was younger, he believed she could do anything, make anything happen, and he's never quite lost that feeling. He will always see her as strong, perfect - what she should be instead of the brittle, broken girl who raised a child when she still was a child.

He lets her lead him upstairs, to her room. Lets them both have the illusion that she is taking care of him for as long as he can stand it. But it must end, because he is no longer a child and neither is she. If he is going to give in to his desire for her, he must be a man to her, for her.

"Come here, baby. You look so tired. Are you sure you're sleeping-"

The indrawn breath she gives when he kisses her is still, he thinks, one of the things he loves best about her. That involuntary shock of surprise that she feels, the disbelief that he wants her, that she can have him, even after all that has happened. She tastes of coffee, and loses her balance a bit as he pulls her to him, tottering on her heels and winding her arms around his waist. He can feel her, everything he and the alcohol wouldn't let him process - the lilac scent of her hair and the perfect way her hips cradle him, the nip of her teeth into his lip and the slow flex of her nails into his back.

She's always been pain, to him, but it's such a beautiful, cleansing pain. It isn't the old-stab of the shrapnel in his leg, or the shred of not-enough that Angela and Tommy are. She's the first breath of a cold winter day, lungs working to keep air flowing. Necessary pain, necessary as air, and he'll never get enough of her. The taste of her mouth and the sound of her voice and the solace of her arms and the strength in her legs; a man could drown in her, but she was the one who taught him how to swim.

He picks her up, holds her solid and wriggling against him, and sits her on the vanity. She braces herself, back arching, breasts spilling out of her corset where he's tugged her dress down around her waist and everything about her is trembling, vibrating like a plucked string. She tugs on his hair, urging his mouth to her breast, and the sound she makes when he closes his mouth around her nipple just cuts right through him.

She's murmuring lovely, filthy nonsense - "oh, baby just like that, love your mouth, so perfect, my beautiful boy" - and he can feel her hot and soaking against his cock through her underthings. He wants, in this moment, everything they've only ever apologized for, and he kisses up her collarbone to her ear.

"Can we?" he asks, and he still can't say it. "You feel so fucking good, please?"

Her eyes are dark, heavy-lidded, and he still can't believe he's made her look like that. "Anything. Anything you want."

And he knows what he wants, lifts her off the vanity and wraps her legs tight around him. Sits down on the bed and pulls at the fastenings to his trousers while she unhooks her corset and shimmies out of her slip. His shirt and vest and her dress and stockings are thrown somewhere they'll worry about later, because now, all he can see and feel is her. She pushes him to the headboard, his back against the brass, and kneels over him, sinking down with a shiver. He can't stop his mouth from tasting her everywhere he can reach, face neck shoulders collarbones arms fingers breasts, never getting enough of her.

She rides him slow, teaches him to savor every inch of her and shows him how much she loves the feel of him inside her. His hands tease her higher, the way she likes, slip and rub and flutter over her clit and her breasts. Everything is so much, too much, too good, and he pulls out, spills over her thighs and pushes her flat to the bed to clean up his mess. He makes her cry and scream, then, putting his tongue to her the French way.

This is the only way he ever wants to see her shake, the only way she should ever cry.


End file.
